Wokingham's open-air cinema to return next month

Wokingham Open Air Cinema is back this summer after it was scrapped after a lack of funds

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Wokingham’s open air cinema is back, a year after being scrapped because of a lack of sponsors.

Organiser Stan Hetherington said the film festival would go ahead next month, with three family films on Elms Field.

Last year he pulled the plug at the beginning of August after businesses failed to get behind the event.

He said: “This year I have been working away quietly behind the scenes to get sponsors and most of them got involved in March.

“I wrote to 50 companies asking for a donation and 11 came back and said they would help.

“We have not managed to raise sufficient money to pay for the event in its totality, but when we pass the bucket around at the end of the film I am sure we will raise more.

“I think we will find that most people will be quite generous.”

The open air cinema was launched in 2011 and, for two years, hundreds of people of all ages, with picnics and fold-up chairs, spread across Elms Field to enjoy family films over a long August weekend.

Mr Hetherington added: “It was very popular and it was a great sadness to me that we could not run it last year, but hopefully we will continue to grow.”

His vision is for a bigger festival with better equipment which will enable films for children to be screened during the day while films with 15 and 18 certificates are shown at night. The current screen can only be used when the light fades.

He explained: “What I would like to do is to hire a LED screen so we can show more films during the day.

“One of the problems of a night showing is little children get tired and mums and dads don’t like them to be out.

“I would like to put up a marquee for the screen to show films for an older audience in the evening – a Nightmare on Elms Field is the obvious choice. That is my wildest dream – perhaps five years away.”

The first film is Bugsy Malone on Friday, August 15, then Despicable Me on Saturday, August 16, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit on Sunday August 17.

Screening will start when it gets dark, around 8.30pm, and filmgoers can use toilets at The Crispin pub in Denmark Street.